Great Lakes Nature

A passionate, wide-ranging history of the landscapes around the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes have been central to the development of eastern North America. In this “beautifully designed, comprehensive gem of a guide to the ecosystem at the heart of Canada” (The Tyee), award-winning science and nature writer Wayne Grady makes scientific concepts accessible as he reveals how human impact has changed this life-giving region. The Great Lakes: A Natural History of a Changing Region is the most authoritative, complete and accessible book to date about the biology and ecology of this vital, ever-changing terrain. Written by one of Canada's best-known science and nature writers, it is intended not only for those who live in the Great Lakes region, but for anyone captivated by the splendor of the natural world and sensitive to the challenges of its preservation. It is both a first-hand tribute and an essential guide to a fascinating ecosystem in eternal flux.

Award-winning nature author Jerry Dennis reveals the splendor and beauty of North America’s Great Lakes in this “masterwork”* history and memoir of the essential environmental and economical region shared by the United States and Canada. No bodies of water compare to the Great Lakes. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and together all five contain a fifth of the world’s supply of standing fresh water. Their ten thousand miles of shoreline border eight states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Their surface area of 95,000 square miles is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island combined. People who have never visited them—who have never seen a squall roar across Superior or the horizon stretch unbroken across Michigan or Huron—have no idea how big they are. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America, affecting the lives of tens of millions of people. The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas is the definitive book about the history, nature, and science of these remarkable lakes at the heart of North America. From the geological forces that formed them and the industrial atrocities that nearly destroyed them, to the greatest environmental success stories of our time, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario are portrayed in all their complexity. A Michigan native, Jerry Dennis also shares his memories of a lifetime on or near the lakes, including a six-week voyage as a crewmember on a tallmasted schooner. On his travels, he collected more stories of the lakes through the eyes of biologists, fishermen, sailors, and others he befriended while hiking the area’s beaches and islands. Through storms and fog, on remote shores and city waterfronts, Dennis explores the five Great Lakes in all seasons and moods and discovers that they and their connecting waters—including the Erie Canal, the Hudson River, and the East Coast from New York to Maine—offer a surprising and bountiful view of America. The result is a meditation on nature and our place in the world, a discussion and cautionary tale about the future of water resources, and a celebration of a place that is both fragile and robust, diverse, rich in history and wildlife, often misunderstood, and worthy of our attention. “This is history at its best and adventure richly described.”—*Doug Stanton, author of In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors and 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award Winner Winner of Best Book of 2003 by the Outdoor Writers Association of America

This guide features over 400 species of plants and animals in the Great Lakes region. It includes extensive natural history, including animal behavior, ecology and range of species and native uses. There are color maps of the Great Lake States-NY, PA, OH, IN, MI, IL, MN and WI-showing parks and natural areas.

""One day I was gazing out my window at a stretch of trees when I was suddenly struck with the realization that I couldn't name any of them .... like most Americans, I had somehow become an adult who could not claim even an elementary knowledge of my natural neighborhood."" "Thus begins Mary Blocksma's ambitious quest to identify the flora and fauna of her Great Lakes home. With no big program, no particular organization, Blocksma sets out to identify her environment just a name at a time, a few times a week, for a year. Covering everything from blue moons and bald eagles to arbor vitae and lake-effect snow, this book transports the armchair explorer out of the living room and into the forests and wetlands of the Great Lakes." "In this charming guide to the everyday but often overlooked ecological treasures that await the would-be naturalist, you'll find not just the names of plants and animals but tips on buying bird feeders, identifying spiders, and telling a blue jay from a belted kingfisher. Packed with helpful hints, novel trivia, and a useful "guide to guidebooks," Great Lakes Nature is sure to delight and educate."--BOOK JACKET.

Drawing on themes from John MacKenzie’s Empires of Nature and the Nature of Empires (1997), this book explores, from Indigenous or Indigenous-influenced perspectives, the power of nature and the attempts by empires (United States, Canada, and Britain) to control it. It also examines contemporary threats to First Nations communities from ongoing political, environmental, and social issues, and the efforts to confront and eliminate these threats to peoples and the environment. It becomes apparent that empire, despite its manifestations of power, cannot control or discipline humans and nature. Essays suggest new ways of looking at the Great Lakes watershed and the peoples and empires contained within it.

This study argues that simply augmenting actions already taken to remedy environmental degradation in the Great Lakes region, such as control of polluters, and piecemeal restrictions of physical development, is not a sufficient response. Rather, it shows that a far-reaching commitment to reduce the environmental assault on the Great Lakes from all sources is necessary. It also underscores the need for a dramatic break from the crisis management approach to environmental degradation that persists in the region, and to develop a commitment to anticipate and prevent future legacies of environmental destruction.